Help with my debate on B.S.E. / Mad Cow Disease

Here is a link to Iowa State University's Mad Cow Information Page

Also look up the disease "Kuru" an ailment of New Guinea cannibals,

Disease "Krutzfeld Jacobs" in humans

Chronic wasting disease in deer

Scrapie in sheep

Altzheimers disease in humans

A little research on "prions" would probably be useful.

Amazon has quite a few books that would be worthwhile reading. One of them relates Kuru to Mad Cow Disease. It's about time

I clicked on medicine. disease and Kuru and got 110 entries.

Unfortunetly for your project there is also a Japanese word "Kuru". It means something quite different. Good luck, it's actually kind of scarey

aka's response makes no sense. And maybe you should try askign members of the other teams from your school.

mad cow disease... I'm for it!

I'm really sorry for the change, but the debate organizers changed the resolution to:

Be it resolved that it shall be mandatory for every beef cattle in Alberta (as in Alberta, the province... a part of Canada) that is meant for human consumption.

It would help me lots if you could help me with basic information on B.S.E. itself, and, more importantly, brainstorm pillars for the debate, both for and against.

Thank you!!!

Mithrelsheep,

I am kind of curious as to the reasoning behind your conclusion

If I did not make myself sufficiently clear I should like to be advised as to what can be done.

I was a bit confused about your post, aka, but I think the main problem was that I couldn't find the relationship between Kuru and Mad Cow Disease. Could you just clarify that for me? That would be great.

drmichele,

Kuru, Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting Disease, Krutzfeld-Jacobs, Scrapie and Altzheimers disease are all diseases in which "prions" have been suspected as being the causitive agent.

Kuru, a disease of persons in New Guinea who practiced ritual cannibalism has been seriously slowed by the cessation of that particular facet of their religion. (They ate the deceased persons brains as a sign of reverence) Don't laugh, Christians today eat the blood and the body of Christ. (Communion ceremonies)

Mad Cow disease aparently is caused by the feeding ( as a protein concentrate-- ie. renderings ) of sheep parts (including brains and nervous tissue) to cattle) ( Sheep with scrapie exibit neurological symptoms) Chickens are also fed "protein concentrate". Since chickens don't live long enough to show symptoms I have no idea as to whether or not they are infectious to humans.

Chronic Wasting Disease of deer species has a similar etology in deer as mad cow has in bovines.

Krutzfeld-Jakobs disease in humans mimics both Mad Cow and Altzheimers in humans. They are (possibly)probably related.

The symptoms when pathologically examined in mad cows, deceased humans with Altzheimers, deceased humans with Kuru, and very old scrapie infected sheep all aparently display roughly similar voids (leisions) in brain tissue.

An organisism, very small, has been seen to inhabit the neurological tissues of victims of Kuru.

A similar appearing "self replicating organism" has been observed is neurological tissue of sheep and deer.

In humans the incubation period is very long for Altzheimers. But when the sheep variety, through cattle, gets into humans then it seems to happen a bit quicker.

It seems to be an aberrant protein, as close as I have read, and there is some arguement ( again mostly philosophical) as to whether it is actually alive. One thing is certain, this aberrant protein cannot be "killed" by any of the methods that we use to sterilize or cook our food. Since it cannot be killed there is some argument as to whether or not it is actually "alive". Philosophically I consider "prions" as the simplest forms of life that we are aware of.

Hope that this helps you to connect the dots, so to speak.

If you have time then hit the library hard.

A very frightening thing is that apparently a very large number of British school children have been vaccinated with a culture that was based on a cattle derived medium.

In other words many children were vaccinated with "Mad Cow Disease".

Not a procedure guaranteed to win elections or win favor among the populace, to say the least

Hope this helps but you will probably need more time. I have read at least three books on the subject and consider myself far from expert.

(but I don't eat deer brains) :wink:

Thanks aka... I think I get it now! I was wondering if you (and everyone else out there, of course!!!!) had any ideas for pillars for the debate... Pillars as in reasons why we should or should not (we have to debate both) test every beef cattle. My team thought up of things like money (how can any government afford all of the testing that would be needed?, etc.), and for the affirmative, things like health (testing all the cattle will make people feel safer when eating beef, and lives could be saved) . Of course, these are the most obvious ones, but those are the kind of things that would be very helpful Thanks!!!

yep, thaks aka, i just didnt get how what you posted fit together at first. Thanks for explaining it.

and michelle, i already have perfectly fine pillars, 2 of which you just said.

you watch futurama binnyboy?

What in the world is futurama binnyboy?

And letz hear the pillars!!!!

its futurama, binnyboy (futurama's a show and binnyboy is an user)

what pillars?

Wierdos. Lol not you Meem.

the only wierdo here is you tay

What you should be debating about is why the beef producers won't quit feeding cows the remains of other cows.

If they'd do that, we wouldn't have problems with Mad Cow Disease.